


Not Again

by WhimsicalEthnographies



Series: The Greatest Game [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Injured Sherlock, Injury, M/M, Pining John, Sherlock is an idiot, he keeps doing stupid shit without john, pining fluff, pre-real relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:16:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimsicalEthnographies/pseuds/WhimsicalEthnographies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock will never learn, will he?  He's going to be the death of John.  At least he'll share his pudding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Again

The sounds of the bar fade to a violent buzz in John’s ears. His vision swims, and begins to fade to black around the phone in his hand. Bile rises in his throat, bitter with fear. _NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO—_

“John? Mate?” Someone is shaking his arm, calling his name.

“Not again…” John gasps, mostly to himself. “Not again!” The phone vibrates. No, not vibrating, his hand is shaking. John tries to swallow the wave of nausea pitching in his stomach. He may be sick. No, he is going to be sick. John starts to push himself off the stool, away from the table. _This can’t be happening again! It can’t._

“JOHN!” Mike grabs him, keeps him from bolting, or maybe from collapsing to the floor. “John! You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate. What?”

“Sherlock…” it comes out like a sob, as John braces himself against the table. He wants to run, and he wants to fall, to curl up in a ball on the ground. But he hands his phone to Mike.

Mike reads the short text message. It’s from Greg Lestrade. “Sherlock’s been shot. Royal. I’m there.”

~~

John abandons Mike and Greg at the front desk and sprints to the trauma holding center. From what he can tell so far, it’s not too bad. Not bullet to the liver bad. Not Mary bad. His heart is still in his throat, and his palms are still clammy, and fear is still swirling in the pit of his stomach. But something else is beginning to pierce behind his eye, red and hot and A Bit Not Good. It started when Greg said, “shoulder” and has been growing exponentially. By the time he reaches the room where Sherlock is being held until he can admitted to a permanent room, his skull feels about to burst.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?” John bangs into the room. A very disgruntled, very drug-addled Sherlock lifts his head off the pillow, and squints in his general direction.

“Wha—“

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT RUNNING OFF ON THESE WITHOUT ME?!? WHAT?” John paces at the edge of the bed, his hands pulling at his short, silver-blonde hair. “IDIOT…FUCKING…idiot…” John stops and his voice cracks. He stops to look at Sherlock, staring wide-eyed at him. His pupils are blown, his eyes glassy. John isn’t even sure he can focus on him in his opiate-haze. “What if…what, what if…” John inhales deeply, trying to calm himself. Sherlock probably won’t remember this through the morphine dripping into his arm. There’s no point in screaming at him.

“Jawwwnnn…” Sherlock drawls, blinking. He squints, leaning back, trying to focus. John will have to adjust the pump. “What…” Christ, he can barely form words.

“Sherlock, twice.” John is still shaking. “TWICE I’ve lost you. No more. You CANNOT keep running off into the line of fire. Not by yourself! You goddamn idiot. I can’t, I can’t…”

“John…”

“What if it wasn’t your shoulder?” John whispers to the floor, gripping the plastic foot guard at the end of the bed. “What if it had been your liver again? Or your head?” He looks back up at the bewildered man in the bed. Sherlock’s hair is a mess, matted and John wonders why a nurse or aide didn’t brush the gravel out of it. His bare chest is stained with betadine, dripping down from under the wide gauze taped to his shoulder. Well, wrapped around his shoulder. The bullet must have exited the other side.

Now they’ll match.

“What if, Sherlock, what if it hadn’t been just your shoulder, and I wasn’t there?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer right away. He blinks, once, twice, as if trying to get a hand on the situation. He’s having difficulty. John drops his head again and tries to take deep, calming breaths. He swallows hard against the shot of pain up his leg. Tears are threatening to spill over.

“John, you can have my pudding.”

“What?!” John looks up. Sherlock is still wide-eyed, but he looks as if he’s had the best idea in the world.

“Pudding. They gave me two…you can have—ahhhahhhaa!” He reaches towards the small table beside the bed, with the wrong arm, and freezes in agony, gasping through gritted teeth. John is at his side in an instant.

“Jesus, Sherlock!” John gently takes hold of the bad arm and eases it back to Sherlock’s side, guiding him back down into the pillow. He sighs, and reaches to pull the uncomfortable visitor’s chair up to the bed. “You really are an idiot.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes and huffs.   John’s hand is still resting on Sherlock’s forearm. He sits and rubs his eyes.

“You can’t keep scaring me like this, Sherlock. Please.”

He opens his eyes to look at John. Perhaps it’s just the morphine, but John swears they look warmer than he’s ever seen them.

“We match now.” Sherlock raises his uninjured arm and rests his hand over John’s, where it still sits on Sherlock’s left wrist.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” John squeezes Sherlock’s fingers tenderly. _Fuck it, he won’t remember this tomorrow…_ John leans in, and presses his nose into Sherlock’s hair. He smells like betadine and nitrile gloves and the sweet vanilla of liquid morphine, with a hint of dirty London street. Sherlock leans his head into John’s face, just a bit. “No more, Sherlock. I come with you. From now on. Always.”

“Mmmm…” he grumbles, and then sighs. John swears he sighs. He steels himself, and presses a firm kiss against Sherlock’s temple.

“And I AM eating your pudding.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how trauma admits work in London, but where I am if you don't need intensive or intermediate care, you get stuck in a temporary room until a permanent one in a unit opens. Sometimes they never get one and are actually discharged from the temporary room. 
> 
> And everyone gets pudding in the hospital. There's always pudding.


End file.
